


renewed

by thir13enth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, s6 spoilers? maybe?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 05:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15041396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: "Police, firefighters, community leaders honor memory of Texas firefighter during I-35 procession"





	renewed

once,

I was not afraid of fire.

you made it seem easy. you would walk into the heat and the sparks and the smoke and you would do it with a bright smile that outshined even the base of the flames. you would wear fifty pounds, carry another two hundred, run over disintegrating roofs, climb on burning walls. even sleepless, you would rescue a family, help a mother grieve over a lost son, take on extra shifts for your tired colleagues, change the coffee filter at the station when the grounds started tasting like coal.

at home, you would cough black, spit grimy phlegm into the sink. if I caught you, you would wipe your mouth and flash me a confident smile. I would ask if the fire made you sick and you would reply that the fire only gave you a good fight and this — your gray-stained fingertips and heavy breath — was just you letting fire take a swing.

you were a hero. indestructible. everyone would thank you for your service and you would brush their gratitude off and let good fortune and luck take the credit for your actions. you would hold my hand as you went to the grocery store, went to the bank, went to the auto shop, and I would hold yours just as proudly.

I never thought I would have to say goodbye to you. I never thought you would never come back home. so sometimes I went to school without turning my head. so sometimes when you were late for dinner, I would just return to a screen. after all, you were invincible.

until one day, you were not. and

 

then,

I was afraid of fire.

fire frightened me because fire swallowed you whole and turned you into dust and memories.

there was no body. there was only a flag, some condolences, many trays of casseroles and pasta dishes. there were bits and pieces they asked to identify as you. at first, I denied anything was you because I denied that you, so big and strong, could be reduced to a palm-full of charred remains. but then as I saw that the pile of vestiges grew smaller, I agreed and said that everything was you because I feared if I continued to say no, I would truly have had nothing left of you at all.

and then the fire chose me, and the gleam in the Lion’s eyes when it recognized me felt like flames in spirit trying to take me down to hell to join your ashes. it was like the fire knew your story, knew my fate, and was determined to fulfill my destiny for me.

saving the universe? freeing enslaved planets? fighting for justice across all galaxies? how could I be a hero when the only example of a hero I knew was one that had fallen?

in donning this bayard, I accepted I was fire. but how could I embody the element that destroyed you? how could I take power in what made me the broken orphaned boy I never wanted to become? how could I pride myself in being the guardian of fire now when I knew if I had been back then I would still have you instead of your ghost?

I asked myself these questions well into the hours of endless space black nights. but then by stroke of luck, or maybe something Mother planned all along, the two of us slipped through cracks in time and space and memories of you.

I was finally able to say goodbye to you. and

 

now,

I am not afraid of fire.

fire is my sword and my shield, my strength and my weakness, my past and my future intimately entwined around each other. I rise from its ashes and I consume its air. fire no longer blinds me in shame of a father long gone; it lights the path to a journey in which I grow and eventually thrive.

and one day I hope I become as much of a hero as you are, and always will be, to me.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh this writing is incredibly out of character for me but you know. sometimes you're just really... grasped by a concept and you just have to do something with it....,,,,,


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